That science extends to keeping the ice surface cold without freezing fans. Even though the game's played on a 200-foot-by-85-foot, 11/4-to-11/2-inch sheet of ice, don't expect to bundle in a parka while you're in the stands.

Under the floor of the PPL Center are 12 miles of piping filled with a special kind of antifreeze called glycol. This element removes all the heat from the floor. It allows Mokan and his crew of six to eight ice guys to keep the floor temperature at 16 degrees, while a fan can enjoy a cold beer while shirtless with a big letter P painted on his chest.

In mid-September, the crew fired up this subterranean deep-freeze machine and turned on the hose for the PPL Center's first-ever ice floor.

Actually, it's much more complicated than that. Mokan first drives around in one of the Zambonis with an attachment on the back that sprays a fine mist. After he has a frozen base coat, another, thicker layer of ice is spread across the floor. This layer contains a white dye.

That creates a big white canvas upon which the playing surface's artwork and lines are painted.

After that, the actual playing surface — the part the blades will actually touch — goes down, a process that takes hours. This is the layer Mokan will concern himself with for the rest of the season.

"You just try to maintain a standard ice depth," he said.

Sometimes that means flooding the surface. Sometimes it means smoothing it. The bottom line is "you want it to be smooth and fast," he said.

But the bulk of the ice — the stuff you see with all the painting and lines — will remain the same all season long at the PPL Center.

If they wanted to remove the ice, they could get rid of it in about 12 hours, Fox said. But for non-hockey events like, say, the Judas Priest concert, workers simply cover it with a special floor. The PPL Center is a multipurpose arena.

Always a hockey fan, Mokan got directly involved in 2001.

"I wanted to get into the game," he said.

He landed a job at the Northeast Skate Zone in Philadelphia. For a time, he moved to Arizona, where he worked at a community rink in Phoenix. Returning to Philadelphia, he handled the ice for public skating events at the River Rink in Philadelphia, before taking a gig at the Wells Fargo Center.

This fall, you might see a fan or a celebrity or someone riding shotgun in the Zamboni. But the guy behind the wheel tending to the ice? That'll be Mokan.